


volkamenia (may you be happy)

by kzumeknma (born_to_fly)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (kinda!), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, HOWEVER!, Hanahaki Disease, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Unrequited Love, note that there is no major character death warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24697210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/born_to_fly/pseuds/kzumeknma
Summary: Just as Kenma does not feel romantic love for anyone, Kuroo only feels it for Kenma. It’s the one terrible, painful incompatibility in their relationship.A Hanahaki AU.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou, Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 106





	volkamenia (may you be happy)

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer! aro/ace ppl (and those on the grey/ace spectrum) are all Extremely Valid and part of the lgbtq+ community, if u disagree i'll fight u right here and now! happy pride bitches! (i'm kidding pls don't fight me)  
> this is my (first) kuroken hanahaki work (i'm sure there will be more in the future) and it's also the longest thing i've ever published because in this house we love and respect kuroken! still working on that characterization tho!

Kuroo hadn’t ever meant for Kenma to know. It just slipped out one day while they were in bed together. They were cuddled together, Kenma playing on his ever-present PSP, curled into Kuroo’s body as the larger man placed kiss after gentle kiss on undyed roots. 

“I’m in love with you.” Silence. It was the roaring silence of a room with too many emotions to verbalize, of too many hurts to hide. Kenma went stiff, his wrench-wielding character falling into lava. He turned to face Kuroo, slowly, ever so slowly. 

“I’m sorry, Kuro. I cannot return your feelings.” The dyed-blonde’s face is carefully impassive, as if to shield himself from the pain of being unable to return the feelings of his best friend. Kenma has never been a particularly emotional person. Romantic love was just another feeling on the list that he couldn’t be particularly bothered to feel. Nothing wrong with it. “You know how I am.” This time, a note of pleading, of begging. That’s even worse, because Kuroo has never wanted to make Kenma upset, never wanted to cross that unspoken boundary.

“I know, Kenma.” And Kuroo Tetsurou  _ does _ know, dear gods did he know, but that didn’t stop a small, hated part of him from wishing for the impossible, for a miracle, for anything, really, from his best friend that would’ve made them more than “just friends”.

Kenma’s eyes flicker away, and Kuroo can see guilt and regret written in the subtle downturn of his lips, the barely-there twitch of his fingers against his game. It’s killing them both, Kuroo knows, but with the flowers in his lungs, he can’t help but feel that he got the worse end of the deal. 

Kenma reaches up to kiss him, to draw him into his embrace, to bury the pain under a layer of physical pleasure, but Kuroo can’t. Not tonight. He says as much, and he can see the words drop on Kenma’s shoulders like the world on Atlas. 

“I can’t pretend. Not tonight.” Kuroo says it, and he means it for both of them. Kenma would do anything for his Kuro, and while Kuroo is a manipulative bastard, he loves his best friend too much to even consider pulling him into this farce. “I’m sorry, Kenma. I need some space. It’s not your fault, you hear me? It’s not your fault.” 

For the first time, Kenma’s carefully-constructed facade seems to crack, just a little bit. “Kuro- Kuro, I do love you, I’m just not- not  _ in love _ \- I’m sorry, I swear, if it was anyone, it would be you. I swear, I promise, if I felt that way about anyone- it would be you.” It’s so out-of-character that Kuroo’s heart breaks just a little bit more, knowing that he’s pushed his best friend, his only love, to this point. Just as Kenma does not feel romantic love for anyone, Kuroo only feels it for Kenma. It’s the one terrible, painful incompatibility in their relationship, and Kuroo feels the pain well up in his throat as he goes to speak. 

“Kenma, baby, it’s okay-  _ don’t _ apologize. I know how you are, and I would never try to change you. I-”, Kuroo can’t get the phrase out. “I love-”, he’s coughing now, great big hacking things that make Kenma’s eyes widen. Kuroo can see the fear and comprehension written into his love’s eyes, and before he can wonder why Kenma looks so scared, he feels something wet and slimy pushing at his soft palate. 

“I love you,” Kuroo finally minces the words out through bouts of coughing, and when he’s finished, he sees the fluttering of soft pink petals to the floor. 

“Hanahaki.” Kenma states flatly. Kuroo stares at the floor, fixated on the harbinger of his own death, the petals mocking him from where they lay. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this-”

“Well, it is like this. And you’re getting the surgery.” Kuroo’s head snaps up at that statement. 

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too. I’d rather you forget-”, There’s a crack in Kenma’s voice that jolts them from their familiar bickering, pushing them into unexplored territory bounded by pain. Kuroo’s suddenly reminded that even though Kenma isn’t  _ in love  _ with him, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love Kuroo. “I’d rather you forget me than see you die.”

“But it’s not your choice to make, kitten.” It’s like the air itself has vacated the room, not wanting to be present as the two best friends clash. The space between them is like space itself, cold and empty, inhospitable, breathless, punctuated by gasping coughs and littered with stray petals. The flowers are beautiful. Kuroo hates them. 

“I’m not going to be responsible for your death, Kuro. Please don’t do that to me.” Kenma’s voice is steady, but his hands are trembling hard as he picks up his game and begins to guide his character down a beach to kill some robotic crabs. He gives up after several attempts to make his fingers obey him, but he’s still frozen, still caught in the moment of his last plea to his best friend, still waiting and hoping, so selfishly, that his Kuro won’t leave him to fight the good fight alone.

“I could try to-” Kuroo starts, but Kenma cuts him off. 

“-fall out of love? Kuro, that’ll take too long- you know that. And I know you,” Kenma continued, quiet, leaving no room for arguments, “you’re stubborn.”

Silence stretches, long and terrible, before Kuroo whispers, “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll get the surgery.” Air rushes like water back into the room, but somehow, Kenma still cannot breathe. Selfishness weighs on his chest, light like an anchor, but against the fear of losing his best friend, Kenma knows he would never survive unmoored. 

Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, Kuroo had known this was going to happen. He had never been good at saying no to Kenma and meaning it. “You have to promise me something, though.”

Wide gold eyes meet Kuroo’s, and he wants to cry at the trepidation he sees there. “You can’t let me forget, kitten” Kuroo holds up a hand, silencing the soft words before they can fall from Kenma’s mouth. “Please, Kenma-” and Kuroo is dismayed at the cracks in his own voice, the barely-contained tears welling at the back of his throat, and he looks away, unable to face his beloved, the person who he loved so wholly, so completely, so dearly, that he grew a winding mess of petals and leaves and vines in his chest.

Fingers, calloused from years of volleyball, intertwine through Kuroo’s, video game long-forgotten in a mess of blankets and pillows. It’s a comforting gesture, but for a split second, the dull ache in Kuroo’s chest splinters into a sharp stab of pain. 

“Okay.” A beat. A hand carding through strands of wild black hair. “I won’t let you forget, Kuro. I promise.” Kenma’s voice is quiet, his face shuttered off, and Kuroo finally allows the tears to come. Nimble fingers travel down his neck, trace patterns against his back, soothing for much longer than Kenma normally allows this close intimacy, before they break apart. 

Kenma picks up his PSP- a breath of fresh air, a poor facsimile of normalcy- and resumes his game, leading his character onto a raft. Kuroo perches next to him, close and comfortable, and comments on the weird-looking blue crabs and clanky green robots. They pretend that nothing has happened, but slight sniffles and wet-sounding coughs sound like gunshots through the facade. Nothing is quite right, not when Kuroo goes home instead of just sharing the bed, not when Kenma wakes up cold in the middle of the night. 

-

There are some things that shake the world in a great mess of smoke and fire. This was one that tilted it slightly on its axis, just a few fractions of a fraction of degrees. If someone wasn’t paying attention, they might miss it, but two pairs of golden eyes are ever-watchful, observing as the world keeps spinning, wrong and unsettling, and being completely and utterly powerless to stop it. Nobody gets to choose who or how they love, after all. 

Time passes, great and unforgiving, marching ever onwards. A hope, quietly crushed, when a white coat shakes his head and says they are unable to separate feelings of romance from feelings of love through surgery. A gentle “but you’re lucky you caught it so early” buzzes under the fluorescent white lights of the clinic. Quiet looks at school, sympathy and empathy and compassion wrapped into pity. Empty, half-hearted teasing over handfuls of blood-stained flower petals. A soft, understanding conversation with two pairs of parents and one pair of boys, light and dark, the brain and the blood. 

Video games lay discarded by capable fingers on rumpled bedspreads while two boys attempt to memorize each other by taste, by sound, by touch. Nights spent soaking up the last dredges of childhood goodwill and playful teasing, both boys holding on tightly- one because he does not want to let go, and the other because he must. Through it all, a blanket of petals, a bed of flowers, haunting the space between them, filling the chasm that had come to separate them.

Hanahaki is not fair. Kenma thinks back to the girls in his homeroom whispering and giggling about how  _ romantic  _ a love disease is, how  _ beautiful  _ and  _ tragic _ it is, but that’s not what Hanahaki is about, is it? If it were just a love disease, then Kenma and Kuroo would be fine, but  _ no _ , it’s fickle, it has to be  _ romantic _ , and Kenma- Kenma’s too bitter, too tired to deal with this. He’s fought through over a decade of teasing and poking and  _ maybe you just haven’t found the right person yet _ , and now he has to deal with a fucking  _ disease _ made of  _ flowers  _ telling him that the way he loves isn’t enough?

There are many ways to say and mean  _ I love you _ , and Kenma loves Kuroo like the flow of a river, like the constant ebb of the tides, but apparently some damn flowers have decided it isn’t _ enough _ and Kenma has never wanted to call bullshit so badly. Kenma is  _ enough _ , damn it. There’s nothing  _ wrong _ with him, with Kuroo, with their relationship and their version of love, and romance and love are distinct and separable, but apparently the flowers in Kuroo’s chest have some different ideas, and it makes Kenma want to scream with the unfairness of it all. Kenma can see it in Kuroo’s eyes, too, the indignant anger simmering under harsh, bloody coughs and quiet sadness. 

The day of Kuroo’s surgery arrives like any other. It’s sunny outside. Kenma gazes out the window of the car as Kuroo drives. The heat of summer is just starting to set in, and it’s not fitting that the season of livelihood- of childlike wonder and warmth, of freedom, of happiness- it’s not  _ fair _ that this is the time where Kenma and Kuroo lose each other. It’s not fair, but it is poetic in that way of endings and beginnings, sunrises and sunsets, long days, quick nights, the death of an era and the birth of a new one.

“We’re here, kitten.” And they are. They step out of the car, Kuroo melting into the sticky heat while Kenma scrunches his nose and turns towards the relative sanctity of the air-conditioned clinic. They hesitate before the doors, one last stolen moment. 

“Kuro.” It’s a plea, one last request, and Kuroo bends down at the same time as Kenma leans upward, and lips meet, gentle, so, so gentle. It’s chaste, tender, sweet. It’s perfect and final and devastating.

It hurts, but it’s nowhere the pain that Kenma feels when his hands are once again tangled in Kuroo’s and they’re sitting in the prep room. The nurse had already administered anaesthesia, and Kuroo’s eyes flicker over Kenma frantically, drinking in the sight of his first and only love like a man dying of thirst drinks water. His gaze traces the line of Kenma’s jaw, flits over sloppily-dyed hair, runs down the slope of a barely-freckled nose, plays over the curl of an imperceptible smile, before meeting golden eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” Kuroo says, and oh- he’s getting fuzzy already. 

While he wasn’t paying attention, fog crept into his eyes, making the edges of his vision blurry. Kuroo can feel himself spiralling downwards into the welcoming arms of unconsciousness, but he knows there’s something important that he needs to say- something so important that he might die if he doesn’t. “Kitten- kitten.  _ Kenma _ ,” he slurs out, as if already in a dream, and feels rather than hears a small affirmative hum in response. “ _ Kenma _ , I- I need you to know- it was always- always- always you,” he thinks he manages to get out, before letting himself be enveloped in the sweet embrace of sleep. 

Kenma is left gripping a slack hand, and as the nurses come in to wheel Kuroo to the operating room, he can’t help but whisper, “It was the same for me, dumbass.” Just not in the way that would’ve helped them, not in the way that would have saved them this mess, this pain.

The Kuroo that loves Kenma is gone not thirty minutes later, uprooted and discarded in blood and heart-shaped flowers, splaying across the floor to be swept up and thrown away later. Gold-tinted memories are sliced from Kuroo’s chest, clinical and methodical, and leaves flutter to the floor, accompanied by years of quiet adoration, split seconds of emotion too big and all-encompassing to comprehend, much less describe.

They had looked up the flowers. Volkamenia.  _ May you be happy _ . What a fucking joke. They  _ had  _ been happy, Kenma thinks, bitter and exhausted, as he sits in the clinic’s waiting room, jabbing at buttons on his PSP. He drowns out his anger at the social construction of romantic love with carefully-aimed blasts of his character’s guns, staves off the unwelcome, overwhelming discomfort with the challenge of defeating the final boss. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, but it’s long enough for him to win the battle and restart the game, long enough for Kuroo to win against Hanahaki and restart his life. 

Kenma’s just finished slashing through another round of blue robo-crabs when a familiar nurse approaches him and, after confirming that he’s there with Kuroo, escorts him to a post-op room, where Kenma catches his first glance of the Kuroo that no longer loves him. Black hair, seemingly unaffected by such inconsequential things as sedation and surgery, sticks every which way on a pillow. Closed eyes and deep, even breathing do nothing to differentiate this new Kuroo, but Kenma can’t help the creeping feeling of trepidation. Anxiety crawls up his spine, prickling at his skin and urging him to escape, but he made a promise. He  _ would _ be there when Kuro woke up. 

-

It’s a blink of an eye, an eternity, too much time and not enough. Kuroo wakes up to fluorescent lights, harsh and unforgiving, and while his airways are blessedly clear, he can’t help but feel like he’s missing something. He looks around, dazed. His eyes are drawn to the corner of the room, almost instinctively, where he finds a small figure curled up in a chair.

“Hey,” Kuroo croaks out. Startled golden eyes meet his, and it’s like something in Kuroo’s chest slides back into place. The surgery might have removed the vines that constricted his ribcage, but he hadn’t felt quite  _ right _ until he’d seen the figure at his bedside. Kuroo’s eyes travel over the boy, drinking in the questionably-dyed hair, the dark undereye circles, the slightly-downturned curve of full lips, and all he can think is  _ pretty _ . In the back of his mind, he thinks he remembers gentle, fleeting touches, the soft purr of a raspy voice, the blueish, ethereal glow of a video game screen as it reflects onto pale skin, and something in Kuroo corrects himself,  _ no, beautiful _ . 

The golden-eyed boy is across the room and clasping his hand in seconds, all nimble fingers and calloused palms. “Kuro.” 

And Kuroo’s not stupid. Deliberately obtuse, sometimes, sure, but he’s not unintelligent. He knows he’s been in surgery for Hanahaki, and if there is a beautiful boy waiting at his bedside and calling him by a cute nickname that he doesn’t happen to remember, well- Kuroo can put two and two together. 

“...I’m sorry, who are you?” And it sucks, it really does, because while the familiar stranger’s face stays impassive, Kuroo can read the flash of pain in his eyes, can sense the boy’s bitter grief like they’ve known each other their whole lives.

“My name is Kozume Kenma. You loved me, and you didn’t want to forget, so I’m here.” A pause. “I’m also here to take you home. Your idea. I told you it was stupid because you would probably forget me, but you insisted.” Golden eyes bore into Kuroo’s, calculating, weighing his reaction, and Kuroo is struck by the sense that there’s a secret message hidden in slightly-exasperated words, a language of imperceptible glances and fidgets that he’s forgotten, and for the first time, he feels the loss of his flowers, of his love. 

“Huh. That does check out,” Kuroo says, and the word  _ kitten _ springs unbidden to his mind, echoed faintly by the smirk that plays at the corner of his mouth. Kenma’s eyes rake over him, searching, looking for lost love in a stranger, and Kuroo can see the moment that the spark of hope flares to life in the pudding-haired boy. 

There’s something about the watchful eyes, the careful movements, the deceptively-casual posture that feels like safety and warmth and trust, and it’s that feeling of barely-suppressed familiarity that lets Kuroo know that there will be plenty of time for explanations, for reconnections, for relearning. He knows, instinctively, that he trusts Kenma, that the bond between them  _ must  _ have been deeper than a simple puppy crush, that their brand of love can be rekindled and rebuilt stronger and more beautiful than ever before. 

“Well then, kitten, take me home.” 

And Kenma does. 

**Author's Note:**

> and then kuroo relearned his love for his oldest friend and they became queerplatonic partners and lived happily ever after because i just want them to be happy, dammit!
> 
> thank u thank u thank u for reading! this has been sitting, unfinished, in my google drive, since 2017. i recently finished it and am now posting for ur approval!
> 
> as always, commenting/critiques/kudos is always appreciated!!


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